As Metro Times takes an in-depth look at fire in Detroit in this week's issue, editor Valerie Vande Panne explores one of the chief causes of the conflagrations -- arson.
Wayne County's assistant prosecuting attorney in charge of the arson unit, Louisa Papalas, is spearheading the legal battle against arson, Vande Panne writes.
Papalas began her career 20 years ago. A graduate of the University of Detroit (just before it became U-D Mercy), prosecuting, she says, was "a higher calling" to public service. She got her start in homicide, and moved on to the child-abuse unit. When grant funding became available in early 2011 through the Michigan Arson Prevention Committee in conjunction with the National Insurance Crime Bureau to prosecute and investigate arsons, she volunteered.
"These are to me the most challenging cases," she tells Metro Times. "They involve circumstantial evidence, building a case on motive, opportunity, [and] what was the means. You have to make juries care about these cases. When you have a burned-out house, it's difficult for people to see the victim — how is anyone victimized if no one was hurt? The insurance company?" You can hear in Papalas' voice that an insurance company is clearly not a sympathetic victim to a metro Detroit jury.
But Papalas knows who is. It's not just the fire department that's a victim, or even an entire neighborhood that's a victim of arson, she explains. "We're all victims of this. Just because someone's not injured, our sense of safety in our community" is affected. And also, she points out, the insurance premiums that are paid.
The Wayne County prosecutor's media liaison provided Metro Times with a 17-page document that lists every arson prosecution since 2011, the beginning of the grant, through last week.
Line item after line item tells the story of arson in Detroit: Anger, revenge, or profit make up about 75 percent of the cases. Anger at landlords or family members, revenge on exes or landlords, and profit via insurance fraud are most prevalent.
The other 25 percent? Mental stability and competency issues.
There's also the serial arsonist — a firebug whose motive can include revenge or anger or mental health problems.
Other Metro Times stories on fire in Detroit:
Arson investigators yet to unravel fire at Detroit's First Unitarian Church
No city has fire flaring up in its history quite like Detroit
Face Time: A word with Brenna Sanchez, director of 'Burn' doc on Detroit firefighters
